The night before her marriage to Menelaus, Helen joined other young girls to dance and sing on the last night of her youth. In the morning, Helen joined in the preparations for her new adult life.

Within the immense palace complex, a massive banquet is being prepared. Accounts of entertainments in Mycenae reveal enormous events with an equally large support staff. Menus included lentil broths flavored with cumin, celery, and coriander; chickpea pancakes; grilled meats; stews; roast boar, hare, duck, and venison.

Guests participated in providing provisions, each proving his status by putting on a more elaborate feast than the one before. A poor man might bring a single goat – a rich one contributed a cow, 2 bulls, 12 pigs, one fattened pig, 1 ewe, 15 rams, 13 male goats, 8 yearlings, 375 liters of wine and over 1,000 liters of olives.*

Entertainment was a cacophony of sounds: torch lit dancing, music played on lyres and flutes, cymbals, rattles, whistles made from hippopotamus teeth. In the moments of relative silence, bards and poets regaled the guests with heroic tales of gods and men. Revelry went on for days with athletic contests and gambling.

Alas the path of love and politics is less than smooth. While Helen grew to a marriageable age, a young herdsman came to Zeus’ attention. Paris was the youngest son of Priam, King of Troy, and his wife Hecuba. Paris didn’t receive the welcome one might expect for a royal baby. Two prophecies insisted this boy would cause the downfall of Troy and must be killed. Hecuba disagreed. Priam quietly told his head herdsman to take the newborn and do the deed.

The shepherd exposed infant Paris on Mount Ida, expecting him to die of hunger and exposure. But when the shepherd returned a week later, the child still lived. So the shepherd took him home. As Paris grew, it was clear he wasn’t the average shepherd boy. He was beautiful, strong, and bright. His exploits brought him to Zeus’ attention, because it’s always useful to keep a clever mortal on file.

As luck would have it, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love; Hera, Goddess of Marriage, and Athena, Goddess of Wisdom asked Zeus to decide who should have the golden apple inscribed “For the Fairest.” Zeus demurred and gave the task to Paris. Poor lad. Three voluptuous goddesses demanded he choose. He saw them with and without their clothing. He vacillated. So the goddesses offered bribes.

Hera offered the entire known world.
Athena offered battle skills and wisdom.
Aphrodite offered the love of the most beautiful woman in the world:

Helen of Sparta.

Guess who got the apple?

Paris made his way to Troy, gained King Priam’s recognition, and was appointed to lead a fleet to Sparta where he would visit King Menelaus, among other activities. Unaware that Paris was after his wife, Menelaus put on nine days of entertainments. Paris openly flirted. He wrote, “I love you, Helen” in red wine on the tabletop. He picked up Helen’s goblet and drank from the lip where her lips had been. He played the lyre. He flaunted his beauty. All in good fun, of course.

And then, Menelaus had to go to Crete to perform rituals for his deceased grandfather. He left Helen in charge of further entertainments for Paris.

The first evening after Menelaus left, Paris came to Helen’s chamber. Aphrodite intervened. Paris and Helen gave in to their desires and eloped, but not in secret. Helen took her son, Pleisthenes, most of the palace treasure, three talents of gold stolen from Apollo’s temple, and five serving women. Helen left her nine-year-old daughter Hermione in Mycenae – perhaps because the child was her father’s heir. Paris no doubt took his entourage. So, it’s not as if the couple stole away in the dead of night with none the wiser. It was, however, several hours before Hermione realized her mother’s absence and gave the alarm.

Meanwhile, Paris and Helen escaped to a small island called Kranai where the fleet took on supplies and Paris allegedly said to Helen,

“Let’s go to bed, and lose ourselves in love!”

It’s not like Helen could change her mind at this point. Paris possessed Helen’s body and wealth. The minute Paris presented his prizes to King Priam, the king knew war would not be far behind.

Goaded by Aphrodite, Paris insulted two kings (Agamemnon and Menelaus), disrespected the rules of hospitality, grabbed another man’s wife, and stole a substantial treasure.

Yet somehow everyone blames Helen. It was her beauty. Her lust. Her duplicity. Her sex.

I like to think Helen has risen above these unjust accusations. When we think of Paris, most of us think of France. The name Helen is another matter.

Acknowledgments:
*Data from pp 83-84, Bettany Hughes

Featured Image: Portrait Helen of Troy, 1863 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828-1882. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons

Bettany Hughes. Helen of Troy. Goddess, Princess, Whore. London: Jonathan Cape. 2005.

The post IMMORTAL HELEN first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

I’m sufficiently enthralled to bring some of Helen’s story, as told by Homer in the Iliad and interpreted by Hughes, to your attention.

Once upon a time, Leda, Queen of Sparta, was married to Tyndareus, and perhaps she remained so. Of course, there was a “problem.” The queen was either cursed or blessed, depending on your point of view, by her great beauty. One day, as Leda bathed in the Europa River, the god Zeus saw the queen, turned himself into a swan, and ravished her. Was she a victim or a participant? Depends which artist paints the picture.

In the aftermath, Queen Leda brought forth two eggs. One story says the queen was already pregnant when Zeus met her. Another that she lay with her husband the same day she was with the swan. At any rate, a shepherd found the eggs in the foothills of Mount Taygetus and took them to the palace. [Sidebar: How did he know where to take them? How did they hatch?]  Zeus’ children, Helen and her brother Polydeuces hatched from one egg. King Tyndareus’ children Castor and Clytemnestra, emerged from the other.

Royal Helen is now a hazy Bronze Age figure – known through the eyes and stories of others. What do we know about Mycenaen girls? Probably they were mothers by the age of twelve, grandmothers at twenty-four, and dead before the age of thirty. Mycenae was a young society.

One day Helen danced with other girls her age along the banks of the Europa River. Theseus, King of Athens, saw her and took her. [It occurs to me the Europa River was not a safe place for women.]

Like Helen, Theseus also had a god for a father – Poseiden. Perhaps not unreasonably, he thought he should have a wife of equivalent parentage. If she was physically beautiful and the heir to Sparta, so much the better. Theseus he took his prize to his mother Aethra for safekeeping while he went to Hades with his friend Pirithous. In his absence, Helen’s brothers Castor and Pollux rescued their sister.

Time passed. King Tyndareus, Leda’s husband, decided it was time for Helen to marry. Suitors came from all over Greece. There were athletic contests. There were treasures brought as gifts. In a time before money, this meant actual goods – herds of cattle, for example. Helen was more than a beauty; she was land and power. The right to rule passed through the female line. Whoever won Helen got Sparta as a bonus prize. [Or was it the other way around?] Under the circumstances, it’s hard to know if Helen’s physical appearance was as beautiful as claimed, or if it was enhanced by her material wealth.

Menelaus, who won Helen’s hand, was not at the competition. He was, however, the younger brother of King Agamemnon, husband of Helen’s sister Clymenestra. Agamemnon poured treasure into Tyndareus’ coffers. Helen made her choice.

In years to come, Helen would have another fateful choice. Come back next week, and I’ll finish telling Helen’s story.

Acknowledgements:
Featured Image: Bust of Helen of Troy by Antonion Canova, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Photo by Yair Haklai, 2009. Creative Commons Attribution. Wikimedia Commons.

Leda & the Swan – Leda et le Cygne – by Gustave Moreau, US Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Leda & the Swan – Peter Paul Rubens. US Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.

Helen of Troy by Evelyn de Morgan. US Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons

Bettany Hughes. Helen of Troy. Goddess, Princess, Whore. London: Jonathan Cape. 2005.

The post QUEEN LEDA’S DAUGHTER first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.